It is almost Easter and nearly Mother’s Day. Do you know where your locally sourced gifts are? As in the appropriate San Diego-made gifts that are not beer?

As is the case with so many cosmic questions, the answer involves sugar, butter and love. In addition to being the home of craft beers, San Diego is also the land of handmade goodies. Whether you’re in the market for an herb-infused caramel or a chocolate-dipped peanut-butter pretzel ball, there is a locally produced confection with your name on it.

Who are some of San Diego’s sweetest merchants, and what happens when they think beyond the chocolate bunny? Let’s ditch our New Year’s resolutions and find out.

Sweets for the aesthete

Eclipse sells soups and salads infused with vanilla and caramel and chocolates infused with chili and basil, but the essence of this fiercely artisanal chocolate company is in the complimentary water available at the entrance of its new South Park cafe.

“This sums up what I want to do,” Eclipse creative director and owner William Gustwiller said, pointing at the glass cooler filled with vanilla-bean infused water. “Everyone has had vanilla bean in something, but they haven’t had it in water.”

Spring has sprung: A jewelry-maker and sculptor by training, Gustwiller often visualizes a candy’s label or flavor description before he hits the kitchen. So it follows that his spring truffles bypass Peeps and jelly beans and go directly to such cerebral inspirations as the cheese board (blackberry goat cheese) and the garden (cardamom rose petal).

“Our real client is the adventurous type,” Gustwiller said, noting that about 75 percent of his customers are women. “I’m not going to make something by hand and package it by hand if it’s something you can find somewhere else.”

Back to the drawing board: Gustwiller comes up with many of his flavor ideas in the bathtub, and some of them — farewell, palate-challenging Spiced Pumpkinseed bar! — end up circling the consumer drain.

“Not everything works,” he said. “But until you break the rules, you don’t come up with something unique.”

Personality profile: Arty, demanding and proud of it. It’s just what the Easter Bunny ordered, if he were ordering after a night of consuming magic mushrooms with the Mad Hatter.

High-end explosives

What’s in the pronunciation of a name? In the case of Chuao (pronounced “Chew-Wow”), it’s the whole enchilada. With chocolates that literally crackle and bonbons that taste like breakfast, this adventurous candy company is built on the indulgent notion that you can’t have too much of any good thing.

“We are on a mission to arouse the senses,” said Michael Antonorsi, the company’s co-founder and chef. “We like to play with ingredients and textures so that you have a multilayered reaction in your whole body.”

Spring has sprung: In addition to “arouse,” Chef Michael likes the word “playful.” Which is why the spring collection features “Hopping Bunnies” (milk chocolate filled with Pop-Rocks style crackling candy) and the “Breakfast in Bed” collection, an OMG blitz that includes a lethally good maple-bacon bonbon and a tribute to French toast featuring panko bread crumbs and cinnamon buttercream.

Back to the drawing board: With great culinary risk comes great customer responsibility, so there will be no garlic in Chuao’s chocolate future.

“I did try a garlic buttercream with rosemary caramel,” said Chef Michael, who studied biomedical engineering at UC San Diego. “It tasted wonderful, but it was confusing.”

Personality profile: It’s a party for your mouth, and you just swallowed the whole mirror ball.

Haute homemade

At the Sea Salt Candy Company’s small shop in a Vista strip mall, Gretchen and Lisa Bender’s daughter Mandi is stationed behind the counter and samples of all their generously salted chocolate toffees and caramels are there for the trying.

“Trying it is at the heart of everything we do,” Gretchen said of the two-year-old company. “We are putting our heart and soul into this, and watching people respond is really fun for us. Since when do you get to go to the candy store and try everything?”

Spring hasn’t sprung: The Benders haven’t created anything new for spring, but thanks to the success of the winter-only Chai Spice Caramel, you can have Christmas all year long.

“We were going to make that one seasonal,” Mandi said of the clove-spiked, white-chocolate dipped comfort bomb. “But people liked it so much we couldn’t stop making it.”

Back to the drawing board: The Sea Salt ladies have started playing around with “Saucy Sister” boozy caramel sauces. But before indulging in Frisky Whiskey or Rum Away with Me, let us toast the dearly departed.

“We tried to make a zinfandel-chocolate sauce, and it didn’t fly,” Gretchen said. “Red wine and chocolate go together, but when you mix them in the same product, the wine almost tasted like vinegar. It did not blend well.”

Personality profile: Homey with a twist. It’s not your grandma’s sweet shoppe, but if she eats the kicky Chile Verde Salted Caramel, she might not need a pacemaker.

Pure comfort

Peanut butter and chocolate, but really, really good peanut butter and chocolate. That is the extent of the Jer’s Chocolates flavor profile and that is just fine with Jer.

“When we got into the industry, I didn’t want to be a ‘me too’ product,” founder Jerry Swain said from the company’s no-frills Solana Beach storefront. “There are so many great chocolate companies doing these out-there things, and I didn’t want to do that.”

Spring hasn’t sprung: Jer’s four main peanut-butter-themed flavors come in various forms (ball, bar, brittle bites), and that doesn’t change with the seasons. Swain hopes to have an egg-shaped treat ready for next year’s Easter hunts. In the meantime, feel free to hide a Cara Mella ball or two. Finders keepers!

Back to the drawing board: A former IBM sales manager, Swain is a big fan of focus groups. And when the group speaks, he listens.

“We did a peanut-banana milk chocolate flavor, but the group said the peanut was too powerful and they couldn’t get the banana taste.”

Personality profile: Like Snuggies and footie pajamas, Jer’s Chocolates are soft, nonthreatening fun for the whole family. Pour yourself a mug of milk San Diego, you can call it a night.